


The Ten Commandments

by NezumiPi



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Child Abuse, Childhood, Gen, Religion, mental health
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-29
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-04 05:25:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2953943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NezumiPi/pseuds/NezumiPi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten scenes from the life of a young Grant Ward, framed by the ten commandments. Covers the events leading up to the well incident, and proceeds through a series of psychologists.  Spans ages 9 - 14; all canon characters come from the Ward family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Misc spoilers through episode 2.10.
> 
> Each chapter will contain two commandments and be about this long, so this will be a fairly short fic.
> 
> It's my headcannon that the Wards are Irish Catholic, so I've chosen the Catholic formulation of the commandments, in case anyone cares.
> 
> If it's not clear, the odd-numbered commandments occur when Grant is nine (before the well), whereas the even-numbered commandments occur each year following the well.

**The First Commandment:** _I am the Lord your God. Thou shalt not have other gods beside me._

_Age Nine_

This rule was about wanting. That was what the Sunday School teacher had said. That you were breaking this rule if you wanted anything more than you wanted to love God. The kids had been supposed to draw a picture of a sad person getting money or prizes or cool toys – whatever they wanted the most – beside a happy picture of a person being with God in heaven.

Grant doesn't do the assignment. He doesn't really understand the rule.

Grant Ward is nine years old and he doesn't want anything.

He doesn't really have preferences. When his mother asked him what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday, he just shrugged. He liked his presents, but he didn't particularly want them. He wouldn't have been disappointed if he didn't get them, and he wasn't sad when Christian broke his RC car.

He doesn't use his imagination very often. He can imagine, of course. He can imagine where the ball will go next in a game of flag football and position himself appropriately. He can imagine what a room looks like from Christian's perspective and pick a good place to hide. He can imagine how his mother will act when she and Dad finish arguing. He imagines all those things when he needs to. What he doesn't do is sit around daydreaming about how he might have a happy family or a perfect life.

He doesn't really want anything at all.

It's not good to want too much, of course, to be greedy or selfish. But there's something unsettling about a child who doesn't want things. How do you raise such a child?

There is an easy explanation for this desireless state, an easy explanation that is also quite wrong: Grant Ward had just about everything a child could want. He grew up in a gorgeous home with a well-stocked kitchen. He always had new clothes, never hand-me-downs. He went to the finest private schools and had tutors for French and piano. He played soccer and baseball and he had horseback riding lessons on Saturdays. He had all the newest video game systems and every conceivable cartridge. He was taken on vacations to the beach and to Europe. At the tender age of nine, he had already rubbed elbows with America's elites and foreign dignitaries.

And yet, most children raised in such opulence still find toys to add to their Christmas lists, still find unhad experiences to fill their daydreams. So how had the Wards managed to raise a boy who would be at a loss should he ever find a wish-granting genie?

They kept him confused and changed the rules frequently.

_"Grant, take out the trash."_

_"It's raining, Mother."_

_"I didn't ask about the weather. I told you to take out the trash."_

_So Grant does what he is told._

_"Grant Douglas Ward!" shrieks Mother. "Why are you all wet?!"_

They told him he wanted things that he didn't really want.

_"Who did this?" breathes Mother, her voice soft and dangerous._

_Christian shoves Grant forward. Grant shakes his head frantically, but that means nothing._

_"Why would you destroy Thomas's picture?" she asks._

_There isn't a good answer. Because Christian made him. Because he was afraid. Because because because. Grant says nothing._

_"He just hates Thomas, Mother," says Christian. "I don't know why. He just wants Thomas gone."_

They made sure he knew that wanting something was the first step toward losing it.

_"How was your riding lesson?" asks Father._

_"Hestia is gone!" cries Grant._

_"Of course she is. Didn't I tell you? We found a buyer down South."_

_"But Hestia was my horse!" And I loved her, Grant thinks but didn't say._

_"Now she's someone else's."_

_"But I didn't get to say goodbye!"_

_Father shakes his glass. "Go get me some more ice."_

* * *

**The Second Commandment:** _Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain._

_Age Ten_

The second commandment was about things you're not supposed to say. You shouldn't swear, of course, but it was okay to say words that sound like swear words. You could say goshdarn as long as you didn't say goddamn. There were other things Grant knew he wasn't supposed to say. He wasn't supposed to say anything to journalists. He wasn't supposed to talk about Mother's pills or Father's friends or pretty much anything about his sister. These were family rules and they were important.

But now Grant was sitting on the floor of Dr. Craig's office and he wasn't sure if those rules applied or not. He was playing Dr. Craig in Jenga and he was doing pretty well.

"Do you know why your parents brought you here?" asked Dr. Craig.

The tip of Grant's tongue poked out from the corner of his mouth as he concentrated on a particularly stubborn piece. He finally freed it with a satisfied exhale. "Because I hurt my little brother and they want to know what's wrong with me." Grant knew it was okay to say that. It's a family secret, but he was supposed to talk to the doctors about it. That's why he kept seeing different doctors.

"Do you think there's something wrong with you?"

"I think if I was crazy, I wouldn't know I was crazy, otherwise I wouldn't really believe crazy stuff."

"That's pretty clever. Do you believe any crazy stuff?"

"I don't think so."

Dr. Craig loosened a piece of the tower. "Can you swim, Grant?"

"Yep."

"Do you like to go swimming?"

"Are you going to take your turn?"

Dr. Craig smiled and worked the piece free. "Do you like to go swimming?" he repeated.

"Sure, it's okay," said Grant. "I like the ocean."

"What do you like about it?"

"It's big and you get to see the fish. I like the waves."

"Have you ever been down inside your family's well?"

Grant looked sullen, which was stupid because he knew questions about the well were coming.

"You don't have to answer that if you don't want to," said Dr. Craig.

"Okay." Grant crawled a few feet to the right so that he could see the tower from another angle. He picked his piece carefully and began to wiggle it free. Not carefully enough. The tower collapsed.

"Whoa," said Dr. Craig, observing the boy's defensive wince. This was precisely why he liked to play Jenga with his young patients. He started stacking the pieces up so they could play again. "Have you ever knocked anything over at your house?"

"Yeah," said Grant, intent on stacking the little wooden blocks. "It was a little glass statue and it broke into lots of pieces."

"What happened then?"

"Mother made me stand on the pieces in my bare feet for hours and hours."

That must have been one of those things that you're not supposed to say, because Grant never saw Dr. Craig again.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Third Commandment:** _Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy._

_Age Nine_

The Ward family went to church occasionally. Enough that their children could all make first communion and be in the nativity play on Christmas Eve. They sent the kids to Sunday School less out of a heartfelt desire for their religious formation and more out of a general sense that Sunday School was one of those things that people _did_.

Grant had mixed feelings about church. It was hopelessly boring. He didn't like the homilies because the priest always seemed to claim that the Bible said they were supposed to do something, whereas Grant had just listened to the Bible passage in question and it said nothing of the sort. It wasn't that he particularly objected to the messages the priest was proclaiming, it was just that Grant was a literal sort of kid and he didn't like being told that the Bible had specific opinions on how he was supposed to work hard in school when all the actual reading said was blessed are the whoevers.

He did like the music, however, and though he'd never want to join the choir, he liked to sing along from his place in the pews. He had a good memory for words (his French tutor had told him that) so he memorized the songs easily and he liked to be petted by the little old ladies who thought it was adorable that he could sing along without a hymnal. Sometimes they had doughnuts and apple cider afterward, which was also a plus.

Of course, for much of the year, they had a more important Sunday tradition, one that involved television, beer, and a desperate love of the New England Patriots.

Problem was, the Patriots had suffered an absolutely lousy year, so Father was reduced to watching old highlight reels instead of the playoffs. Still, football was football. Father wasn't exactly paying attention to Grant, but he at least seemed pleased when the boy echoed his cheers and miserable cries of defeat.

So the NFL was their religion and the living room their house of worship. Grant learned a lot more from Sundays with his father than he did in a hundred church services. He learned that Representative Marcus Reinman was a fucking liar and not to be trusted. He learned that if you wanted someone to like you, it was a good idea to ask that person for a favor, one that makes the other guy feel like an expert. He learned that if you wanted to hold up a vote in Congress, you could just stand up and start talking and refuse to stop, but no one ever did that because it was such a pain in the butt.

Grant learned that his mother was a souse and a pill popper and a wreck. He learned that Christian was an accident, but Thomas was made on purpose just to shut Mother up. He learned that father took a lot of phone calls from nameless women and Grant wasn't to mention that to Mother because it would just upset her and she was such a wreck already.

* * *

 **The Fourth Commandment** : _Honor thy father and thy mother._

_Age 11_

"He's aggressive," said Mother. "He's disturbed." She wrung her hands together. "He's so cruel to his younger brother. I just don't know where all this anger is coming from."

Dr. Angela Wolk nodded sympathetically and glanced over at the 'he' in question, to offer him a chance to respond, but Grant Ward remained silent.

Grant didn't say much through the intake. His new psychologist asked him a few questions, but upon realizing that answers weren't forthcoming, she directed most of her queries to Mrs. Ward. It was her job to solve the puzzle, the problem, that was the Wards' middle son. This surly preteen who was well-behaved at school, but a terror at home. Who could display shocking cruelty, but didn't show signs of being a psychopath. Who mostly looked empty and blank, but allowed flashes of sadness or fear to escape when the adults' attention seemed to be elsewhere.

Mrs. Ward told the story of a boy who had been caught mistreating, even abusing, his younger brother many times, including one very frightening incident involving a near-drowning. Grant, according to his mother, rarely denied his misbehavior, but never seemed to take responsibility for it, always blaming someone else for "making" him do it.

"When you talk about 'abuse," asked Dr. Wolk, "can you give me an example of what you mean?"

"Violence, fear, cruelty."

"Sexual behavior?"

"What? No! He's not a pervert."

Mrs. Ward's defensiveness at the question wasn't unusual, but Dr. Wolk still had to ask. Regardless, Dr. Wolk thought it was a bit incongruous, the way Mrs. Ward was so willing to paint her son with a very dark brush, but became self-protective when sexual deviance was discussed.

Almost an hour had passed before Dr. Wolk invited Mrs. Ward to return to the waiting area. "It can't have been fun to sit here and listen to all that," she said to Grant.

He shrugged, head down, chin almost resting on his chest.

"Before we start talking, I'd like to talk with you about confidentiality, things that are confidential. Do you know that word?"

"It's stamped on secret files in spy movies."

"That's right. Confidential means 'secret'."

"And things I tell you are secret," said Grant in a low sing-song that made clear he was echoing the words of a dozen therapists who had preceded her.

"Not exactly," said Dr. Wolk, and she was pleased to see Grant straighten a little as he took notice. "It's absolutely true that I will never tell anything you say to your teachers or your friends at school, but there are limits to the secrets I can keep." Painstaking honesty, she hoped, would win the boy's trust.

"What kind of limits?"

"The first thing you need to know is that there are a few secrets that I can't keep under any circumstances. If you plan to kill yourself or someone else, I'll do what I have to do to keep people safe and that might mean telling a secret. If an adult is very badly hurting a child – you or another child – then the law says I can't keep that secret either."

Grant had heard about these rules before. They were explained to him by Christian in great detail after the incident with Dr. Craig.

"The other thing you need to understand is that children don't have a legal right to confidentiality from their parents. I won't go and blab every little detail to your parents. In fact, I'd prefer to only speak to them with your permission. But, according to the law, if they demand to know what you've been saying to me, I have to tell them."

No one had ever explained that to Grant before. It sucked, but it made sense.

"Do you have any questions about confidentiality?"

"No."

"Your mother had a lot to say about you. I'm wondering what you think about all that."

It wasn't a simple thing to explain. There weren't words for the things that had happened. Saying 'Christian made me do it,' made him sound petty and immature. He didn't think he was the awful person that his mother had described, but he really had done pretty much all the awful things she said. Sort of had done it. Hadn't meant to do it. Or maybe he had. They all said he was so angry and so mean. Maybe he really was. It was hard for Grant to know what his own motives were when everyone else had such strong opinions on the subject.

But that was too much to say, so Grant kept his chin to his chest and said, "She was telling the truth."


	3. Chapter 3

**The Fifth Commandment:** _Thou shalt not kill._

_Age Nine_

Here’s how it ended:

_“Punch him hard or it doesn’t count,” says Christian._

_Grant squints and looks carefully, memorizes where everybody is, so he can shut his eyes and still aim as long as Thomas doesn’t move._

_Thomas doesn’t move, but he whimpers and cries when Grant’s fist connects with his gut._

Here’s how it began:

It began with a very good day, as far as Grant was concerned. Mother had locked Christian in the back part of the basement, past the wine cellar and into the unfurnished part that had steel reinforcements and no windows. Grant wasn’t sure what – if anything – Christian had done to merit his confinement and he didn’t particularly care. He knew from experience that Mother would leave Christian down there for hours, sometimes days.

Which really sucked for Christian – there was no question about that – but it was a nice reprieve for Grant, who was working on a Lego model of the space shuttle, complete with earthside launch command while tolerating stupid questions from his younger brother.

“But how come my pennies aren’t a collection?” asked Thomas, idly putting two random Legos together before taking them back apart.

“You don’t have a collection,” said Grant impatiently. “Collections are for things like books and seashells and stuff.”

“And pennies.”

“Not pennies. You can’t collect money. Well, you can, but it’s not a collection. It’s just your bank account.”

Thomas sighed and untied his shoe so he could practice tying it again. Grant had offered to teach him to tie sailing knots once he got the hang of shoelaces.

They both heard a thumping in the walls. They exchanged glances. Mother wasn’t really nice to anyone, but she was worst to Christian. There was a time, years ago, maybe before Thomas was born, when Grant and Christian were sometimes on the same team, allies against their parents. Now, it was every man for himself on good days and on bad days…

Grant hopped down off of his bed and picked up the cordless phone. Maybe he could talk Gramsy into inviting him over for a visit. He dialed the number by memory and tried to think of a good reason while the phone rang. No answer. More thumping.

Whatever Christian was doing, he eventually gave up because the noise died down.

Grant put it out of his mind and focused his attention on his Legos, specifically on prying apart the flat pieces that Thomas had stuck together. He let his guard down, which he should have known better than to do, because for all Grant enjoyed the times when Christian was kept away from him by Mother’s punishments, they always ended with Christian in a predatory mood.

“Did you know-“ 

Grant was startled by the voice coming from his doorway.

“Did you know that we have mice in our basement?” asked Christian. He was holding a little grey mouse in his left hand, petting it gently with the right.

Thomas leaned in, curiously. “Can I pat it?”

“Oh sure,” said Christian. He didn’t sound like he was lying, but Grant knew that he was. He always was.

Thomas had just leaned forward to touch the soft fur when Christian’s right hand shot out, grabbing him by the ear. Christian raised the mouse over Thomas’s head. “Uh-huh,” he said, “not yet.”

“Let him go,” said Grant, almost by reflex.

“Punch him,” answered Christian, “punch him as hard as you can.”

“I’m not going to beat him up,” said Grant. “He’s just a little kid.” Grant hoped he sounded defiant, but he probably just sounded weary.

“If you don’t,” said Christian, “I’m going to kill this mouse.”

* * *

**The Sixth Commandment:** _Thou shalt not commit adultery._

_Age Twelve_

Grant actually liked his weekly time with Dr. Wolk. She didn’t try to trick him. She took him seriously. She let him have his secrets.

“I’m not sad about it,” said Grant. “I’m just pissed off.”

“Who are you pissed at?”

“I don’t know. The doctors? I mean, a stroke is a thing, right? It’s a little tiny thing in your brain that kills you. Why can’t they fix that?”

“Sometimes they can,” said Dr. Wolk. “In your grandmother’s case, they weren’t able to do so quickly enough.”

“They’re smart. They’ve got tons of money. They should figure something out.”

“You really want them to take responsibility for their failure,” guessed Dr. Wolk.

“Yeah!” said Grant, but as soon as he said it, he knew it didn’t sound right. “No, she was mostly dead before she even got to the hospital.”

“Hmm.”

“I guess…I guess I’m not mad at the doctors. I’m just mad.”

“Grant, can I make an observation?”

The boy shrugged. She didn’t really need his permission.

“I’ve known you for over a year now and we’ve seen each other many times. We’ve talked about a lot of different things. But the only feeling you’ve ever said you have is anger. You’ve never mentioned feeling happy or sad or frightened or anything other than mad.”

“Is annoyed a kind of mad?”

Dr. Wolk nodded.

“Then, I guess I’m just mad all the time.”

“That’s possible, certainly. I think you have a lot to be mad about.” Grant always froze inside when Dr. Wolk said things like that; it made him wonder if he had let on to any family secrets. “But there are other possibilities.” She tapped her long fingernails on the armrest of her chair. “I’d like you to think back two weeks ago, before your grandmother’s death.” She knew better than to delve into fresh grief with a hypermasculine, closed-off preteen. “I want you to think of the last time you were angry.” She flipped back in her notes. “The last thing we talked about…you saw your father kissing a woman who was not your mother and you said you felt furious.”

Grant nodded. That was the sort of secret that Dr. Wolk could keep, and therefore the sort of secret he could tell her. He had gone to his father’s office – his local office, not his D.C. one – to get a signature on his school permission slip. There had been no one at the secretary’s desk, so he’d let himself into the back to find…well, it wasn’t exactly wrong to call it kissing, in the sense that someone’s lips were on someone else’s body. He’d slipped away before anyone had noticed him.

“Are you picturing that moment, Grant?”

“Yes.”

“Think carefully, and tell me how you felt.”

“Angry.”

“That’s a summary of lots of different physical sensations and thoughts. Tell me exactly how you felt.”

Grant was silent for several moments. “My face and arms and legs felt like sunburn, but my hands were sweating. My stomach felt heavy and squeezed. Is that what you mean?”

“Yes. Did you feel anything else?”

Grant considered her question carefully. “You know how you can touch your wrist to take your pulse, but other times you can just feel your heart beating without touching at all? It was like that.”

The physical sensations the boy was describing were not incompatible with anger, but they sounded more like fear or dread. “And what were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t thinking anything.”

“You must have had some kind of thought.”

“I was…I guess I was just thinking that if he got caught, something terrible would happen.”


	4. Chapter 4

**The Seventh Commandment:** _Thou shalt not steal._

_Age Nine_

Mount Plymouth Academy was a very expensive school. Parents got what they paid for, Principal Dennick felt – small classes, top-notch teachers, a challenging curriculum. Of course, they admitted a small number of scholarship students each year, to build diversity and give back to the community. These were talented kids who were being given the opportunity of a lifetime. Dennick really believed in the scholarship program, even if she kept it small. The subsidized students were given money to pay for books, uniforms, and school supplies on top of their tuition waivers. Their parents were often uneducated and intimidated by MPA.

Which is why it was rather alarming that the father of Spencer De Silva had called her office with a complaint.

Dennick checked her files before returning Mr. De Silva's call. Spencer was in third grade, doing well academically, no behavioral concerns. His mother was a housekeeper and his father was a construction worker.

"Hello? Mr. De Silva? Yes, this is Principal Dennick returning your call."

After a minute or so of how-are-you and I-hate-to-be-a-bother-but, the man explained the problem. "You see, we got Spencer this video game for Christmas – I can't believe how expensive they are! – and another boy in his class stole it from him. I've told Spencer to talk to the teacher, but he just won't. He doesn't want to be a tattletale. I get that, I do, but it's not tattling if it's a fifty dollar game!"

Principal Dennick assured Mr. De Silva that the matter would be taken seriously. "And do you know the name of the boy who might have taken it?"

div

The seats in Principal Dennick's office were sized for adults, big enough that Grant's feet didn't quite touch the ground unless he stretched his toes.

"Do you know why you're here, Grant?"

"Because my teacher told me to come here."

"Do you know Spencer De Silva?"

Grant nodded. "Yeah, he's in my class." As an afterthought, he added, "He's good at soccer."

After speaking to Spencer and the boys' teacher, Dennick thought it was very likely that Mr. De Silva's accusation was true, but Grant wasn't acting guilty or rattled.

"Did you take a video game from Spencer?"

Grant nodded again, still unfazed. "Yep. From his backpack. I think he was going to show it to people at recess."

"Did you have his permission?"

"No."

"That's stealing, Grant! I won't allow that in my school. I want you to write a letter of apology and give the game back."

"I can't."

Dennick raised her eyebrows. "You can't?"

"I don't have the game anymore. I destroyed it."

Well that was unexpected. And the word _destroyed_ was an odd choice. Not _broke_ , not _lost_. _Destroyed_. "You destroyed it on purpose?" she checked, just to be sure. "Why would you steal something if you didn't want to have keep it?"

"He talked a lot about it, how his parents got it for him for Christmas and it made him really happy. I didn't want it. I just didn't want him to have it."

* * *

**The Eighth Commandment:** _Thou shalt not bear false witness._

_Age Thirteen_

Grant settled into his regular chair across from Dr. Wolk. She could see that he had added black nail polish to his increasingly goth appearance. She knew better than to comment on it, but inwardly she was pleased. He was a teenager and a little healthy rebellion was to be expected. His older brother had maintained a clean-cut outward appearance, according to Grant, but had experimented with different political positions. Currently, Grant said, Christian was aligning himself with something called 'Sinn Fein'.

"I've never heard of that."

"It's the political part of the IRA. You know, those Irish guys who plant bombs because of Northern Ireland? He doesn't really believe it. He's just trying to impress a girl."

"I see." In contrast, an all-black wardrobe and some steel jewelry was positively benign.

Grant squirmed in his seat for a moment before saying, "Can we…talk about a book?"

Dr. Wolk nodded, slowly. There was always a tightrope to walk with Grant. She had very strong suspicions that there was something very wrong in the Ward household. And of course, if Grant told her of specific acts of abuse, she would be required by law to report them to the authorities. But the Wards had connections, and there was no way her report would actually result in sanctions against the parents. And then the parents would remove Grant from treatment and the boy would be worse off than when he began, because Dr. Wolk did in fact believe that she was helping Grant to process and deal with all the events in his life, albeit indirectly.

They couldn't talk about exactly what was happening, and Grant preferred to keep his feelings at arm's length anyhow, so they talked about movies and books. They talked about _A Wrinkle in Time_ and how a person might end up with impossible responsibilities. They talked about _Tuck Everlasting_ and how a person might grieve the death of a loved one. They talked about _Star Wars_ and how a person might handle the realization that their parents were on the Dark Side. Conversations about books were important conversations.

"Is there a particular book that's on your mind?"

" _Harry Potter_."

"Hm." She had asked him to read _Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone_ a few months prior. The protagonist came from an abusive family and then went on to form a new family of friends and mentors. She had been hoping to guide Grant toward considering that possibility for himself, but all her teenage patient had wanted to do was discuss Quidditch at great length. "What's on your mind?"

"Just…what it was like for him with the Dursleys."

"Mm-hm?"

"They made him live in that little closet. They treated him like a slave." Grant's arms were parallel to each other, pressed against his stomach.

"I imagine there were many details left out of the book. Other things people like the Dursleys might do."

Grant scoffed. "They might do anything! People are so creative when they're horrible. They might-" Grant closed his mouth. He kept his face pointed forward, but his eyes looked away.

Dr. Wolk felt a little jolt of recognition. She could help Grant process many things in his life, but they could never talk about the worst things. "And you've really been thinking about the sorts of things the Dursleys would do," she said. "I'd really like to hear your ideas about this story."

Grant squeezed his eyes tightly shut. He pressed both hands against his forehead, almost as if he were trying to press himself back into the chair. "I just think they're awful."

"Mm-hm."

"And…they punish him for no reason! But, but what if he actually did something bad?"

"I imagine they would be even worse."

"Yes! They would…they would…"

"They wouldn't just send him to his room would they?"

"No. No, it would be worse than that." Grant's face was very red and his lips were pressed together. "No, they might…"

"Might what?"

"Might make him…might put…put hot sauce on his tongue." Grant was near tears and obviously trying to hide that fact. "A lot of it. And it burns."

"He would probably want some water."

Grant shook his head. "Can't have water."

"What do you think he'd do?"

"Probably nothing. Can't do anything because he's a stupid little kid." Grant swallowed heavily. "Maybe he'd do magic. Or just wait until he can go away to school."

Dr. Wolk put her hand on Grant's back, rubbing lightly over the black t-shirt.

Grant took the cue as it was intended. He whispered, "I wish I was magic," and started to cry in earnest.


	5. Chapter 5

**The Ninth Commandment:** _Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife._

_Grant Ward Age Nine_

Christian Ward showed a lot of promise. That's what all of his teachers said. He got straight A's, but he wasn't so smart as to stick out from the crowd. He played sports well enough to not embarrass himself, but he wasn't so invested that he couldn't shake hands and be a good loser. He got along well with his classmates. He had plenty of friends and no enemies.

Christian new how to take care of problems without getting his hands dirty. When he was a fourth grader, he attracted the attention of a bully. He didn't fight back. He didn't tell the teacher. He simply got an answer sheet for an upcoming test and partially hid it in the bully's desk. The older boy got in trouble for cheating and Christian stayed out of his own fight. No mess.

Christian wore clean shirts and pressed pants. Christian didn't waste his time with _Super Mario_ or _Sonic the Hedgehog_. Christian practiced his viola for exactly thirty minutes every day.

He had tried a marijuana cigarette just once and had regretted it ever since.

When he was very young, before he knew how the world worked, Christian wanted to be a plumber. He liked to watch their handyman, Manuel, at work. Manuel, in turn, seemed to enjoy explaining his job to the boy. Manuel fixed a valve on their boiler. He said, "You know when you fill up a water balloon at the faucet?"

Christian had not done so personally – water fights were dirty and pointless – but he understood the general principle. He nodded.

"If you put in too much water, the balloon pops. Not a big problem when it's a balloon, but when it's this whole boiler, it's a much bigger deal. So I put this valve in. When there's too much steam or too much water, a little bit comes out. It never gets too full, so it never pops."

Christian had decided right then, at the age of five, that he wanted to be just like a boiler. He could be full of hot water and steam but he would let it out in just the right way at just the right time and he would never pop. A few years later, Christian had tried to explain this plan to Grant, who just turned the page in his comic book and said, "You're definitely full of _something_." That didn't matter. Grant _was_ the safety valve, the outlet that allowed Christian to function perfectly, to seem smooth and strong and straight. The plan didn't require his agreement.

As a young teenager, Christian had no trouble finding a girlfriend. He had dated casually, as 14-year-olds do, in relationships that lasted a week or a month at most. But then he met Melissa. She was his senior by two years, she could drive, and she'd let him get to second base. They spent hours upon hours on the phone and had seemingly endless dates (that were never long enough) just driving around in Melissa's car. He was smitten.

* * *

Billy Joel is playing in the living room.

Christian doesn't know why he dreads it, but he does. He walks down the stairs slowly, quietly. He isn't as good as Grant is at sneaking around, but he knows which floorboards creak. He doesn't open the door all the way, just a crack, because somehow he feels like he knows what he's going to see.

Billy Joel is playing in the living room.

Father is dancing. Christian can see Father dancing to the music.

Father is dancing with Melissa.

There's too much steam in the boiler. Christian can see it, fogging up his vision. He can hear it, whistling like a tea-kettle. He can feel himself bend and break as he backs away from the door. Even though he's turned away from living room door, Christian can still see exactly what's happening. He can see Father's put one hand on the small of her back, edging downward as they sway, and use other hand to brush back her hair or stroke her cheek to make her feel special. He can hear her soft laugh – the laugh that should be for him, not Father!

Christian is in the wine cellar. He can still hear the steam whistling in his ears and he uncorks a bottle without bothering to check what it is. He's had wine before, but only small sips. Now he takes a gulp and another and another. He feels warm and for a moment he thinks that's the steam, but he knows that it's just his blood vessels dilating as a result of the alcohol. He drinks more, straight from the bottle, but he doesn't feel any better.

This is how Mother deals with Father's infidelity. Why isn't it working for Christian? Oh, that's right. She uses something else too. Those pills. Xanax and Ativan. Christian stumbles up the stairs, the effects of the alcohol beginning to spread, and finds Mother's purse. That's where the pills are. Wards are champions at managing their feelings with chemicals and Christian is ready to take up the tradition. He unzips the purse and rummages through it, clasping the plastic pharmacy bottle, when a hand clasps his shoulder. It's Mother.

"What on earth are you doing?"

"I'm-" Christian hiccoughs.

"Are you _drunk_?"

Christian can't help it. He echoes, "Are you _drunk_?" in a stupid voice.

Mother grabs him by the ear and drags him into the study. The door shuts. Nothing can be heard from the outside. After seventeen minutes, Mother leaves the study. Three minutes later, Christian leaves as well, looking small and humiliated and empty. He goes right to his room where he remains for four days.

On the fourth day, Christian emerges from his room looking for all the world as though nothing were wrong, as though his Father hadn't stolen his girlfriend, as though his Mother hadn't subjected him to some kind of unknown and unspeakable punishment. He is wearing a light jacket over his shirt.

"Come on," Christian says to Grant and Thomas. "Let's go play down by the well."

* * *

**The Tenth Commandment:** _Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods._

_Age Fourteen_

Wanting was apparently a major concern of the Israelites because there were three whole commandments about it – four, if you counted the one about stealing. Grant never seemed to want much of anything. He viewed life as something that happened to him, rather than something that he did.

Unfortunately, he was doing some very unacceptable things.

There had been another "incident", another fight between Grant and his younger brother. The term 'fight' made it sound like the boys were equals, brawling back and forth, but that was patently untrue. Even Grant admitted that his younger brother was too small to have any chance in a fight against him. So the incident wasn't a fight, not really. It was a beating.

"Grant, I'd like to talk with you about adulthood," said Dr. Wolk.

"Is this going to be a puberty thing?" asked Grant, playing the role of the sarcastic teenager.

"I'd like to talk with you about what kind of adult you're going to be. You're growing quickly. In a few years, you'll get to run your own life. You're tough, you're clever, you could be a hero to someone. You can also do very cruel things. You could also be a villain." She paused and looked at her patient. He appeared to be considering her words. "You can decide which you'd rather be, but it's not just a matter of preference. You have to learn, you have to train yourself to make it happen."

"You mean like Batman?"

She shook her head. "I mean like someone who can solve problems without resorting to violence. I mean like someone who can build and maintain interpersonal relationships. I mean like someone who can make his own choices."

"Isn't that the stuff I'm supposed to be learning from you?"

"Yes, and you are learning. You've made progress."

"Just not enough progress," guessed Grant.

That was the truth, but it sounded too harsh, so Dr. Wolk neither confirmed nor denied. "I believe you can learn these things best away from your family," she said. "I'm not suggesting this as a punishment. I think you want to be the good guy. I think you want to be the hero. I want you to have the tools to become the man you want to be."

"What about Thomas?" asked Grant.

Wolk knew that Grant saw himself as his younger brother's protector. Unfortunately, the evidence suggested otherwise. "Grant, I know this is hard for you to hear, but based on the information I've been given, I have to conclude that the person who hurts Thomas the most-"

"Is me."

Dr. Wolk nodded.

"Away from my family," said Grant, echoing her earlier words. "You mean like a hospital?"

"No, a school. It's a facility in Georgia called Blue Mountain Ranch. The boys there go to classes in the morning and work on the ranch in the afternoon. There are group therapy sessions. You won't get to watch much TV, but you will get to take care of the animals."

"What kind of animals?"

"I knew you'd ask that, so I called and found out. They always have horses, chickens, and dogs. They serve as a shelter for animal control, so they sometimes have other animals as well."

"And they boys there, are they like me?"

"Actually, most of them have drug and alcohol problems. I know that's not a problem for you, but of all the schools I considered, this one seemed to be the best fit."

Grant looked like he wanted to argue, but he looked away instead. "Will it help me?" he asked softly.

"I think so," said Dr. Wolk. "I really do."

* * *

For the first time in many years, Grant Ward wanted something. He wanted to attend Blue Mountain Ranch. His parents readily agreed.

"You know, I went to boarding school, too," said Father. "I think it was good for me." Of course, Father's boarding school was Phillips Exeter, not a few glorified barns in the middle of nowhere.

Mother said she'd miss him terribly and she'd write often.

Christian put a hand on Grant's shoulder and told him that he was proud of his little brother for finally taking some responsibility for himself.

Thomas wanted Grant to mail him pictures of the chickens.

So it was a Saturday when Grant Ward boarded a plane with his father, his belongings stowed in a footlocker. Grant was nervous. Even though Dr. Wolk had described the program to him, he still didn't really know what it would be like. And in a certain way, going off to a residential treatment program made him feel like he had failed at something. But above all, Grant wanted this. He wanted this program. Yes, he wanted to be free from his family, but he also wanted to feed chickens and learn how to become somebody's hero.

Father didn't say much during the flight. They rented a car and set off on the three-hour drive from the airport to the ranch.

"Are we going west?" asked Grant, looking at the sun. "The ranch is south."

"I have the directions. It just looks that way because of the roads," said Father vaguely.

Grant turned on the radio. There was static, a baseball game, someone praising Jesus, and more static. He turned it back off.

"Grant," said Father, "I want you to know that I'm proud of you for taking this leap."

A very faint smile made its way to Grant's face. He was almost there, almost to his Hogwarts, almost to the Blue Mountain Ranch. And if Father was going to pretend like they were a normal, happy family, then Grant could play along. "Thanks, Dad."

Father made a left turn. The surrounding land didn't look like pasture. It was neatly mown. Grant squinted at the buildings in the distance. They didn't look like barns. They looked like…red brick.

The car rolled on and they passed the sign welcoming them to Hayes Military Academy.

"No," breathed Grant, "no." This wasn't what he wanted and he had _wanted_ something, had wanted it so much he hadn't even imagined that it might be snatched away. "No, I'm supposed to go to the ranch with-"

"Your mother and I discussed the matter and we simply think this is a better fit for you. That other program barely had a proper school – you wouldn't be able to get into a good college. And it was an end-of-the-line sort of thing, for druggies and criminals. You don't need to be in that crowd. This place will teach you-"

"I was supposed to go to Blue Mountain Ranch," repeated Grant, as if saying it again would make it so.

"Grant, this is not up for debate, you are enrolling at Hayes and that's-"

"I hate you," whispered Grant. He felt like he should be yelling, but all he could do was whisper. "I know it won't change your mind, but I want you to know that I hate you and I hate Mother and I hate Christian and I hate this whole family."

"Are you finished?" asked Father, as the car rolled into a parking space.

Grant said nothing. There was nothing else to say.


End file.
